Identity Crisis
by outlawstaar
Summary: How does Neal react when he realizes his powers are as lame as most of the fans seem to think they are. You guessed it, heavy drinking! A lil humor thrown in too (as if tormenting Neal wasn't funny enough).


Well, if you think I own Xtreme X-Men or any of the other characters that might show up in this story then answer me this.  Why do I still not have any money?  Heh, got you there…

Identity Crisis

            "Uggh, what time is it?" droned Neal as he rested his right arm on a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.  It was well past midnight, and everyone in the penthouse was fast asleep, which allowed Neal to wallow in his sorrows alone.

"Baah!  Like it matters anyway, I'm such a loser!"

            Turns out, Neal wasn't very interested in what time it was.  His eyes were focused on cerebro bios on the computer screen in front of him…

Rewind to earlier that night.  The day's diary search had proved, as usual, to be fruitless, and to relieve his boredom the third incarnation of Thunderbird decided to ease his nerves on the computer.  After messing around a bit on AIM (screen name indianminionX, by the way), he decided to look around some of the more interesting files they had stored on that thing.  He _was an X-Man, after all, he had the right to see what kind of information they had to use against their enemies._

After nosing around for a bit, Neal was delighted to come across the file "Cerebrabios.exe".  He was a little rusty on a lot of the bad guys that had plagued the X-Men in the past.  Perhaps this was a way to get some knowledge under his belt and impress that smart-ass Bishop when he'd pull one of those damned pop-quizzes of his.

"Input Name or Power," prompted the screen.

"Heh, alright then," mused Neal.  He typed in his name.

SUBJECT: Thunderbird (III)

Mutant Power: Absorbs and redirects Solar Plasma, allowing for flight and energy projection.  Powers similar to many previously seen energy manipulators.

"Huh.  Powers similar to… this must be a mistake… my powers are cool and unique, there can't be that many other guys out there like me…"

To prove himself right, Neal typed his power into the main search.  The double digit match number, however, deflated his hopes…

Which eventually lead to Neal's current state.  It didn't take many bios to prove to Neal how common his powers were:

SUBJECT: Havok

Mutant Power: Can project waves of plasma absorbed from cosmic sources.

SUBJECT: Sunfire

Mutant Power: Heat generation, allowing him to fly and project heat beams.

SUBJECT: Sunpyre

Mutant Power: See _Sunfire_

SUBJECT: Firestar

Mutant Power: Absorbs microwaves, allowing for heat beam projection and flight.

And so on.  All of which were there long before he was.  "Why God, why?" lamented the poor boy.  "Am I to forever be Bishop's personal battery?  Am I just here to shoot things and look pretty?  Jesus, it's like you just decided to make a token Indian mutant or somethi…"  Upon saying this, Neal realized that he just might have come upon the awful truth.  He quickly opened an internet search engine, and typed in "Indian Superhero".  Unfortunately, all he got were two Gandhi history sites and far too many international gay porn sites for his liking.

Neal took another shot of the hard stuff, and passed out in front of the screen.

As usual, Sage was up far earlier than the rest of the team.  As such, she was first to come upon the pathetic site that had become Neal.  She cycled through the sites and files Neal had looked at, and after killing her initial theory regarding the boy's sexual preference soon understood what had brought Neal to where he was.

"Poor Neal," she said aloud, "I sometimes get too caught up in how complicated my own powers can be that I never considered the psychological effect of having a so-called 'normal' power."

She started to walk away, but suddenly got an idea.  After cleaning up the mess Neal made, she typed in a few things on the Cerebro files, before heading out.

Neal woke up about an hour later, surprised to see that that the immediate area was completely cleaned up.  That's when he noticed the small note stuck to the computer screen in Sage's handwriting.

"Take heart, dear.  You would be surprised to hear what other… prominent figures you may have heard of that have the exact same problem you do.  Love, Sage!"

Puzzled, Neal peeled the note aside and looked at what was on the screen.  Displayed in front of him was one of the most famous X-Men of all time.  He had been involved in nearly all their adventures almost since the team's inception.  Every student to attend the university knew of him and worshipped him for being the best at what he did.  Of course, Neal already knew all about this clawed mutant, and could hardly see how this was supposed to help him any.  That is, until he saw the bottom of the screen.

"See also: Sabertooth, Deadpool, Wildchild…"

For the first time in hours, Neal finally felt good again.  Well, for the next thirty seconds, at least, before he ran to the bathroom to bury his head in the toilet.

"Dear God, newbie!  At least close the door if you're gonna do that!" exclaimed Rogue as she walked by.

"Oh shut up, Roguuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrr… I don't feel so good."


End file.
